


Be Careful

by Mollymawk



Category: Persona 4
Genre: Coming Out, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-02
Updated: 2013-08-02
Packaged: 2017-12-22 06:01:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/909760
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mollymawk/pseuds/Mollymawk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Souji never really had a plan for coming out to his uncle. He hoped he wouldn't have to. But some things are easier to hide than others.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Be Careful

Souji threw his scarf over his shoulder as he came down the stairs, alert to the low buzz of the TV from the living room. “Nanako-chan,” he called into the next room. “I’m heading out! Will you be alright?”

“That’s okay,” she replied cheerfully over the sound of the commercials. “Dad’s home!”

Souji paused, then changed course from the door. It wouldn’t be right to slip out now, not like this.

Dojima was indeed home, sitting at the table with the newspaper, his cup of coffee steaming in the slight chill of the room. “Heading out, hmm?” he asked, his eyes unmoving from the printed page, but Souji was certain he was being examined minutely.

He nodded. “Study session with my friends. We’ll be at the Hanamura’s.” He was glad that was actually the plan tonight, that he could be honest.

“Ah. Bit late for that, isn’t it?” Dojima still hadn’t looked up.

“We had to wait for Yosuke’s shift to be over,” he said, deferentially tilting his head.

“I see. Well, stay warm.”

Self-consciously he tightened his scarf, to prove it. “I will. I should be back before 10.”

“Good. Call if you won’t.” It sounded like a dismissal, and Souji took it as one, but only a few steps to the door, his uncle spoke again. “Say. I’m curious about something.”

He froze, turning around in the entryway and stepping back to the kitchen. “Yes?”

Dojima was looking at him this time, and though it was definitely the look of a concerned parental figure, it was also the look of the detective in interrogation. “You and that Hanamura kid.”

His throat tightened. “You mean Yosuke?”

“Mmm-hmm.”

He paused, swallowing against the hollow ringing in his ears. “He’s my friend.”

Dojima said nothing. His stony eyes looking over the top of the newspaper were enough to goad more out of Souji without a single word spoken. Feeling heat on the back of his neck, he unwrapped the scarf and tried to will his voice to calm. “He’s a really good friend.”

The gaze only continued, with the very slightest lift of the eyebrows. Dojima was studying him, watching every twitch and tic in his face, examining each piece of evidence. It was then that he knew, with certainty and a shuddering skipped heartbeat, that the silence was asking the question both of them understood, the one burning in the back of his mind that he'd hoped would never come up.

Souji lowered his head, nodded once in assent, and waited for everything he had feared to come crashing down.

“I see.” His uncle’s voice was softer now. With disappointment? Rising anger? He couldn’t tell, and his uncertainty was vibrating inside his chest. He tried to find his voice again, but it slipped away from him. He glanced at Nanako; she was oblivious to the possibility of “fighting,” sitting happily at the kotatsu and watching TV with a look of drowsy contentment. He looked back at Dojima, and saw that he had followed his gaze. There was a nod of approval, of concern for Nanako, still recovering from her ordeal.

He lowered his head again, feeling his face burn, a sharp-edged thing twisting within him. He knew what could happen. He had tried so hard, but he just couldn't ignore what what he felt for his best friend, his partner. Not after all they'd been through together. Not after all that happened this year. But he had tried so very hard to be discreet when it came to what he had with Yosuke, because they both had everything to lose. Especially in a small town.

Dojima cleared his throat, and the sound shook Souji back into the moment. He tensed in preparation for the words that could end it all. 

“Be careful, okay?”

He blinked, his heart stumbling over a beat. It was so unlike what he had expected that the words made him feel fragile. “Dojima-san?” he asked for clarification.

“Be careful,” his uncle repeated, and there was a difference in his eyes over the top of the newspaper, a softness. It lasted for just a moment before his eyes were back on the printed words.

Light-headed, he could only make a swift nod before he found his voice again. “I am. I will be.”

“Good.” And just like that it was as if nothing had happened, as if it were just a commonplace caution about the weather and the dark. Dojima was back to reading the paper. Nanako was still watching TV. It was just another evening in the household that was more like home than home had ever been.

He allowed himself to breathe again, starting with one soft exhalation of the apprehension he’d held in. “Thank you, Dojima-san,” he ventured.

“Mmm.” A sound not quite of assent, betraying a moderate degree of unease, yet making clear that at this time he saw no need for further steps to be taken. “You’d better get going.”

Souji almost forgot what he meant, before recognizing the weight of his bookbag in his hands. “Yes, Dojima-san, thank you,” he replied, turning for the door once again.

He heard the shuffle of the newspaper pages as he put on his shoes, his heart still pounding in his ears, the scent of Dojima’s strong coffee, and the sharpness of relief in his veins. Maybe it wasn’t necessarily approval, but it was far better than he had hoped for.


End file.
